Citizen Kane

Best movie in the history of film, or just the world's longest sled commercial?


A friend of mine recently posted a question on his Facebook page which interested me. The question was, what movie are you most embarrassed to admit you've never seen? I liked this question, and thought it over for a while, but I've seen most of the movies that I feel I ought to have seen. I haven't yet finished my goal of watching all 80+ winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture (I've still got 20-some left to see), but I'm not embarrassed about any of the ones I haven't gotten to yet. They're mostly really old and hard to find, and only a handful are considered classics by anyone in particular. So in short, I had a hard time coming up with an answer, but I eventually settled on Citizen Kane.

Citizen Kane is a classic, heralded as a masterpiece by the country's most respected and knowledgeable movie critics, often called the best movie ever made. On the other hand, the average movie viewer tends not to view it so favorably. In response to my answer to the question on Facebook, one girl simply declared, "Citizen Kane was awful." To that I have to say that she's clearly kind of an idiot - not because she didn't like the film, but because she had the gall to say that there's nothing to like about it, blithely ignoring all of the analytical expertise of the critical community. But maybe I'm reading too much into her words, and to be fair I've heard other people express a similar opinion with a bit more tact and rationale.

So I have to wonder why there's such a disconnect between the critics and the average person on this movie. After obtaining a copy of the film, I sat down to figure that out, and I think I have an answer. Citizen Kane is a movie of subtlety, a movie where lighting and camerawork are just as important to the narrative as the writing. A casual viewer might miss a great deal of this subtlety, whereas experienced critics pick up on it and appreciate it. And it may be that the subtlety has only increased over time, since the things that made Citizen Kane so powerful have been mimicked to the point of making them commonplace. That effect can be murder for a great film, especially over the course of nearly seventy years.

I'm sure everyone knows a thing or two about the film. It's the story of Charles Foster Kane, rich and influential newspaper tycoon, as revealed to a reporter trying to unravel the meaning of Kane's dying word: "Rosebud". Of course, what every person in the world knows by now is that Rosebud was the name of his sled when he was a boy, so I'm just getting that out of the way right now. But the great thing about this movie is that even knowing the ending doesn't mean you understand the ending; the whole movie builds up the significance of that revelation. Let's dig in and see if it's worth it.

The opening scene is fairly iconic, so you probably know it. An iron gate with an enormous K at its peak. A huge mansion in the dark night at the center of a vast estate. A man in bed. Snow falling on a small house. The camera pulls back to reveal that the house sits inside a snow globe in the man's hand. The man whispers "Rosebud" as the globe falls from his hand and shatters on the floor. In the reflections on the broken glass, we see a nurse enter the room. The nurse goes to the man's bed and pulls the blanket over his face.

I'm going to stop for a second and talk about this scene. Kane's dying word "Rosebud" is, of course, the axle around which this movie turns, but it isn't immediately obvious that there was anyone in the room to hear him say it. Cracked.com called it out on their list of "8 Classic Movies that Got Away with Gaping Plot Holes". They actually got ahead of themselves, though, and apparently forgot to finish watching the movie, because Kane's butler later claims that he was in the room when Kane died and heard him say "Rosebud". Where was he standing? Well, damned if I know. My theory is that the butler is also a ninja and was standing in the shadows somewhere. Hey, Kane's a rich motherfucker, he can afford a ninja butler if he wants one. And who wouldn't want one? Anyway, the important thing is that he was there, damn it. Plot hole closed.

Also, pay attention to what I said about the camerawork in this scene. The pull back that reveals the house to be in a snow globe, the nurse's entrance being shown in the reflection of the broken glass, etc. That may not sound all that impressive, but in it's day that was astounding cinematography. This movie was made in 1941, which is still during what I consider the early days of movies. These were the days when filmmakers were still figuring out what the medium could do. Most films of that era had little in the way of visual effects, and usually didn't even move the camera all that much. They were essentially stage plays performed with a camera rolling (that's also why actors in old movies tend to over-act; actors on stage perform that way so that people in the back of the audience can read their emotions). But this film uses complex cinematography that accomplishes things unique to films that other mediums can't imitate. That was new and different in 1941.

So next the film cuts to a newsreel about the life and death of Charles Foster Kane. This segment lasts over nine full minutes and it's excruciatingly tedious, but that's actually the whole point. In brief, the pertinent information is this: Kane's family was poor and ran a small boarding house until they received from a defaulting boarder the deed to a mine thought to be worthless. But through this mine they found great wealth. Kane became a prominent newspaper tycoon. He married and divorced twice, the first wife dying in an accident shortly after their divorce. He ran for governor but lost due to a scandal. His second wife was a singer for whom he built an opera house and half-built a palace called Xanadu, still unfinished when he died.

The newsmen producing said newsreel discuss it and find it lacking in substance (see, told you it was supposed to be tedious). They propose to find what he meant by his dying utterance of "Rosebud" to see what it told them about his character. They send a reporter named Thompson to interview people in Kane's life to see if they knew what it meant. This scene takes place in a dark room with a few paltry shafts of light streaming in from the projector booth above. Again, this kind of lighting was rarely seen in movies of this era, and it helps to create a dark mood and a sense of mystery. It also keeps the audience from getting a good look at Thompson's face, and they rarely will get one. He is almost always seen from behind or with bad lighting. This keeps the film's focus off of Thompson and on Kane, where it belongs,and does it without being corny.

Thompson first meets with Kane's second wife, Susan Alexander, in Atlantic City. She's become a short-tempered drunk, who yells at him to leave. Say, British game show host Alistair Armstrong, how would you describe this scene?

Yeah, that seems about right. So Thompson goes to the Thatcher Library in Philadelphia to read the private journals of a man named Thatcher who raised Kane. The room they send him to is ridiculously huge and empty, and again with terrible lighting. In practical terms, this is stupid for a reading room, but it again sets up a dark and mysterious mood, so let it stand. The journals lead into a flashback of Thatcher going to Kane's home to take him away from his parents, at his mother's request. If you ever wondered why his sled was so damn important to him, it's pretty much this moment right here. Playing with that sled was the last thing he did before his mother gave him up to be raised as a ward of the bank. That sled was the last memory of honest happiness and love he had. And all of this is shown to us by Kane riding on his sled for about one second, down what can't in good conscience even be described as a hill.

When this is your last memory of happiness, you are to be pitied.

We skip ahead to Kane's adulthood. Kane, now independent from the bank, takes control of the New York Inquirer, and immediately uses it to run the bank's name through the mud. We learn this via a montage of Thatcher angrily and inexplicably reading the newspaper headlines out loud. Thatcher confronts Kane about his yellow journalism, and Kane responds with a sort of sarcastic nonchalance and a few brilliant quips. My favorite is this one:

"I sympathize with you. Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel. His paper should be run out of town. A committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of one thousand dollars."

Orson Welles' performance is spectacular throughout the movie, though that's hardly a surprise, but I found it particularly keen in this scene. Kane turns from irresponsible jokester to defiant champion of his own sense of justice (and back again) in an instant, while neither attitude or even the transition between attitudes feels forced. The movie then jumps to 1929, when the Inquirer goes bankrupt.

Now, several years ago I heard a movie critic pick this scene as his favorite scene in movie history. It seems a bizarre choice. After all, there are so many great moments to choose from. There's Rocky Balboa's training montage, King Kong's final stand at the top of the Empire State Building, the twist ending of The Usual Suspects. Personally, admittedly with a little bias, I'd have to pick the scene at the end of The Return of the King when everyone in Minas Tirith bows down to the four hobbits, and the four shortest people in the city are suddenly standing above everyone else. So why has this critic (I forget his name) chosen this particular scene? His reason was the symbolism of Kane walking away from the camera as the bankruptcy papers are read, growing smaller to the perception of the audience.

Honestly, I think he was just doing a little ego-wanking.

This isn't a bad scene, but best scene ever? No. It's hardly even memorable. But I'll give that critic credit for pointing that symbolism out to me, because I might have missed it otherwise, and it's actually a recurring bit of symbolism in the film. Whenever Kane loses something, he is shown from far away, and appears small. And that's where I sympathize with the people who didn't like the movie, because it's stuff like that that makes it brilliant, and that kind of stuff is not obvious.

The flashback ends, with Thompson back in the ridiculously spacious reading room, admitting that the information was no help to him. He then seeks out Bernstein, Kane's manager. Bernstein sits in a comically oversized chair, probably symbolic of something or other, and reminisces about a girl he saw in the distance in 1896. The point of this story is that people remember trivial things for a long time, and I'll admit I remember all kinds of stupid, meaningless stuff like the name of the guy in Jurassic Park who gets eaten by the T-Rex while he's on the can (Gennaro, by the way), but remembering some girl you only saw once and never talked to... for 45 years? That's messed up, man. But anyway, he goes on to recommend that Thompson talk to Kane's friend Jedidiah Leland, and then tells a story represented by flashback about how money was never what Kane wanted in life.

This story begins the day Kane takes over the New York Inquirer. The Editor-In-Chief, Carter, tries to have some kind of formal event to welcome him, but Kane throws him off by not listening to him and by forcing him out of his office to turn it into his own residence. Kane then goes on to pressure Carter into using any means necessary to investigate and print unsubstantiated gossip stories, to Carter's dismay. At the end of the day Kane writes a declaration of principles for the Inquirer, promising to be honest and a champion for the people's rights. Leland asks to have the original copy after it runs in the paper.

Kane sets out to steal the staff of the Inquirer's rival, the Chronicle, said to be the finest newspaper staff in the world. In six years he accomplishes just that, as shown by an impressive match cut from a photograph at the Chronicle office to the men sitting in front of Kane in person. The Inquirer is now the biggest paper in New York. Kane leaves on vacation after the staff sends him off with a song written about him, in one of the film's most iconic and oft-referenced scenes.

On the left, the original scene. On the right, the tip of the iceberg.

Amidst the avalanche of statues and artworks Kane has purchased in Europe and sent back to his office, word comes to his staff that he is getting married. When he returns home, they learn that the woman in question is in fact the President's niece, Emily Norton. The flashback ends there, and Bernstein says that he doesn't know who or what Rosebud is (he knows it wasn't Emily), but suggests that maybe it was something that Kane lost.

Thompson next goes to see Leland, who's living in a hospital now that he's grown old. Leland glosses over the Rosebud question, apparently not knowing the answer, and instead decides to tell Thompson more about Emily. There's a montage of short clips of Kane and his first wife, as Kane neglects Emily in favor of the Inquirer, and they progressively become more argumentative and passive-aggressive with each other. Emily accuses Kane of going too far to attack the President, to which Kane answers, "You mean Uncle John"... and I admit a bit of confusion because none of the Presidents in that range of years were named John. In fact, in 1941 when the film was released, the most recent President named John was John Tyler, who left office in 1845. The montage ends with a silent shot of Emily reading the Chronicle as Kane glares at her, perhaps the most glorious "bitch" moment in the history of film. Leland says that though Kane wanted to be loved by everyone around him, he never loved anyone but himself.

Thompson asks if Kane ever loved Susan Alexander, and Leland reminisces about how Kane met her. In this flashback we first see Susan leaving a drugstore, and starting to laugh. The camera pans over to show Kane, splashed with mud from a passing buggy. Susan, through the pain of a toothache, offers to let Kane into her apartment to clean himself off. While there, Kane gets her mind off of her toothache by making her laugh. Kane tells Susan that he had been on his way to a warehouse where all of his mother's possessions were stored, to reminisce. Susan tells Kane that her dream is to be a singer, but that her voice isn't right for it. Nevertheless, Kane asks to hear her sing. She sings for him, and he applauds, which melds into the applause at a campaign rally for his run for governor. Another cut brings us to Kane delivering a scathing speech against his opponent, Jim Geddes. This is another of the renowned moments of the film, with Kane standing front of gigantic poster of his own face.

"And if you think my face is big..."

As Kane leaves the appearance, Emily reveals that she's been sent a note directing her to Susan's apartment. Kane goes with her, and when they arrive Susan tearfully tells him that she had been forced to send the note by Geddes. Geddes has had enough of his treatment at the hands of Kane, and is now going to blackmail him into pulling out of the race for governor. As he explains his plan, Kane is standing in the back of the room with a shadow over his face. At the end of the scene he steps forward into the light and announces that he's staying in the race, in spite of Emily's protests. Geddes sends his story to the other newspapers and Kane is defeated in the race in the wake of the scandal.

A drunken Leland confronts Kane in the newspaper office, now littered with streamers and campaign banners, about his patronizing relationship with the people and his loving no one but himself. Interestingly, the scene is filmed entirely from shin level, looking up, even with multiple cameras and several cuts. I'm really not sure what specifically this was supposed to mean, but it does make one feel that this situation is some kind of bizarre. We also have another instance of Kane walking away and becoming smaller as he considers what he has lost. Leland demands to be transferred to Chicago, and Kane reluctantly agrees.

We cut to Kane marrying Susan. He builds her an opera house since existing opera houses refuse to let her perform. As she prepares for her debut, she is clearly uncomfortable. Her singing coach is yelling at her, and people are running back and forth chaotically. We see the curtain rise by its shadow as Susan begins singing, and the camera pans up to the rafters where two stagehands look at each other knowingly and one pinches his nose. The scene cuts to Kane returning to the Inquirer office, entering in shadow, as his associates discuss writing a glowing review of Susan's premiere. The only one absent is Leland. Kane finds him in his office, asleep at his typewriter. He has half written a terrible review. Kane decides to finish it himself, with just as negative a tone as Leland intended. Then, after Kane fires Leland, the flashback ends, but the image of Kane at the typewriter lingers in the shadow in the corner of the room. That's a shot that, even by today's standards, is pretty cool. Leland tells Thompson that Kane finished the review for the sake of proving something, and that having Susan sing in the first place was about proving something else.

Thompson visits Susan again, and this time she's more receptive. We get yet another flashback, which begins with the lighting around her face getting brighter while the rest of the scene fades out. We see her in a singing lesson with an Italian-caricature type coach, who is clearly something of a douche. Kane stands in the background but advances, gaining the appearance of greater size, when the tutor tells Susan that she has no talent. Kane chastises him, saying that it's not his place to say that kind of thing, and to be fair that is actually a good point. Susan continues her not-actually-all-that-bad-but-a-little-bit-off-key singing, and we match cut to her debut performance, just before the curtain rises, in a scene like the one in the previous flashback. The shot is darkly-lit one, which gives the feeling that things are about to go badly.The curtain rises, and Susan begins singing, while Kane sits in the shadows looking more like a diabolical mastermind than a proud husband.

"With this, Phase Two of my plan to control the nation's supply of cadmium is complete... and not even Captain Maximo can stop me!"

The show goes on, and the following sequence maintains the bleak dark lighting. Susan's singing now becomes aggravatingly amateurish, off-key and off-tempo. Leland is seen in the audience tearing up his program out of boredom. The singing coach continues to direct her from the orchestra pit, but only gives a resigned shrug as she fails to sing her part correctly, over and over again. When the performance ends, there is a brief smattering of polite applause, but it quickly dies away. Kane, with a look of sheer defiance on his face, stands and begins to applaud as loud as he can, but this really only makes things worse, because being able to make out one individual person's applause just highlights how little there is to begin with.

Susan delivers a hysterical rant upon reading Lelands review of her performance, which of course was actually written by Kane though she isn't aware of that fact. A letter arrives for Kane from Leland, containing shreds of paper (implied to be the remains of his severance check) and the declaration of principles from Kane's first issue of the Inquirer. Kane remorselessly tears it up, as Susan declares that she's finished singing. Kane angrily tells her that she will continue singing to keep him from appearing foolish. He stands over her in this shot, drowning her in his shadow, and it's genuinely chilling. There is a montage of Susan's dismal performances across the country, along with shots of Inquirer headlines and Kane continuing to practice his "Ruler of Black Skull Mountain" face, and finally ending with a shot of a lone light bulb going out. Next we fade in on a close-up to a medicine bottle, and we see that Susan has overdosed in an apparent suicide attempt. In the wake of this Kane finally agrees to let her stop singing.

We next see Kane and Susan at Xanadu, Susan putting together jigsaw puzzles as she grows tired of living cooped up in the mansion. As she laments her unhappiness, Kane once again walks to the background of the shot, growing small. In this case it also seems to symbolize the emotional distance between the two of them. This scene and the next show them communicating by shouting across empty rooms, even though there's nothing preventing them from approaching each other. Susan finally yells at Kane that he's just trying to buy her love. In the next scene she packs her bags and prepares leave him. Kane, sounding absolutely defeated, asks her to stay, but Susan replies that even now he's only thinking of himself, and leaves anyway. The flashback ends Susan tells Thompson that when he visits Xanadu, which is to be his final stop, he should talk to the butler, Raymond. Thompson remarks that in spite of everything, he feels sorry for Kane, to which Susan replies, "Don't you think I do?"

Raymond offers to tell Thompson about Rosebud for $1000, and Thompson accepts. The final flashback begins where the previous flashback left off. After Susan walks out on him, Kane trashes her bedroom... awkwardly, like he's drunk and confused. His expression almost makes it seem like he doesn't even know what he's doing. His outburst suddenly ends when he finds a snow globe, the same snow globe from the film's opening sequence. He mutters "Rosebud" and staggers through the halls of Xanadu, at one point passing a set of mirrors that reflect his image stretching back to infinity.

Symbolic of... something. I'm not sure what, but I guarantee it's something.

Raymond goes on to mention how he heard Kane say "Rosebud" just before he died as well (suck it, Cracked.com!), but doesn't know or care what it means. Thompson rescinds his $1000 offer, as that information was absolutely worthless. He finally gives up hope of learning what Kane's dying word meant. As they wander through the maze of all of Kane's assembled material possessions, he says that knowing what "Rosebud" was probably wouldn't have explained anything about Kane's life. It was likely something that he had lost, but ultimately it was just one piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The camera then leaves Thompson and pans over the vast heap of Kane's possessions. It ends with a few workmen burning all of the non-valuable items in a furnace. One grabs a sled from the pile and throws it into the fire. The camera zooms in to reveal the word "Rosebud" painted on its surface, in what is now the most well-known twist ending in cinema history.

And there you have it. Citizen Kane, a polarizing topic but a piece of film history that will never be overlooked when works of sheer importance are listed. The camerawork, lighting, and editing effects used in Citizen Kane forever changed how films were made, so there's no doubting that the film had an impact. So, is it good? Well... this review wasn't meant to decide for you. I suggest watching the film for yourself and deciding whether you like it or not. After all, I can talk all I want about the little details, but if the little details don't interest you, and dramatic tragedy movies aren't your thing, well then I can't convince you to like it. The story is solid, and its anachronistic telling makes it interesting, but it is admittedly very dry. It can be boring if you don't find such stories entertaining. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, and after watching the film I can equally understand my friends' aversion to it as the critics' praise for it. My goal here was simply to look at what makes Citizen Kane the movie that it is, and hopefully give some casual movie-watchers a greater appreciation for what it accomplished. Because informed opinions are worth well more than uneducated ones.

Of course, worth is all relative to the owner, n'est-ce pas?

Citizen Kane and all related characters and images are the property of Mercury Productions, RKO Radio Pictures and Orson Welles. Images used from Citizen Kane, Pointless, and The Simpsons.